Évaluation publiée le 14 février 2016
The Witness is a first person exploration puzzle game that is highly remarkable for a variety of reasons, some of which sadly can't be discussed easily (or at all) without risking spoilers.
For those of you considering the game, please take this to heart and limit or (preferably) just abstain from looking up more info about the game. Many reviews contain spoilers at some level (including the top reviews)! The forums and community hub also do (even though there is a Spoiler subforum, there are still spoilers in the other sub-forums). I will try to keep this review as spoiler free as practical.
First and foremost, The Witness manages to evoke even in a seasoned gamer like me, the sense of wonder I felt when playing games like Myst for the first time.
That is, among other reasons, because the game is a gorgeous piece of virtual art. Most of us are no longer easily impressed by pretty, expensive, mass produced graphics. This is more than that.
While indeed technically excellent, the world (well, island) of The Witness is crafted in a way that feels something like walking around in a masterpiece painting (or series of paintings, as there is considerable environmental variety). Aside from the overall beauty, there are so very many wonderful details to admire. I don't think I have played any other first person 3D game that approaches this level of artistry.
Second, the gameplay, which consists primarily of exploration, puzzle solving, and a sort of scavenger hunting is surprisingly enjoyable.
The classic CD-ROM game Myst is perhaps the closest comparison and the biggest inspiration for this game, but The Witness is much more accessible, less frustrating, more beautiful, and, I think, more rewarding an experience.
It is a game of epiphanies, repeatedly producing quite nice feelings of accomplishment in ways that not many games do, even most puzzle games.
This is largely because the puzzle solving mechanics are never directly explained to you, but the world presents you with ample visual and symbolic clues to make your own inferences. This is the core design principle, and, to me, indeed a key selling point.
Based on preview videos I saw initially, I had significant reservations about the seemingly simplistic puzzle mechanic. Simple it is indeed, but it is presented in such clever, varied, often challenging ways that it never really felt tedious or overly repetitive to me (although, I am quite good at puzzles). And, yes, there is somewhat more to this than solving 2D puzzles on flat panels.
Going into more details about the mechanics would spoil the sense of discovery that is the highlight of the game, so I will not, but I will say that this game will exercise your mind in a wide variety of wonderful ways.
It's not an easy game. While getting to the "easy" ending can be done without much effort, the game holds substantial challenges for those that wish to take them on.
During my playthrough, I ended up using three sheets of graph paper and taking numerous private screenshots for future reference. It's
that type of game - the type of game (almost) nobody has dared to make in decades.
It takes maybe a 10-20 hours to reach the easy ending, and another 10-20 to reach complete the second achievement. However, there is quite a bit more to do, and doing all of it, even with a guide, would take quite a lot longer.
So, to those of you wondering about the $40 price point, the game has
plenty to offer to justify it.
Conditional Recommendation
I highly recommend The Witness to the right audiences. The trick is determining whether or not you are the right audience for the game.
Reasons you might not like The Witness:
* You have a sensory deficiency (colorblind or deaf) - see Sensory section below for more details
* You dislike puzzles.
* You dislike thinking.
* You want your game mechanics clearly explained to you rather than having to figure them out based on clues/cues.
* You need games to have a coherent, "traditional" story. What is the game about? If you really must know, it's about
epistemology* You would be overly uncomfortable exploring a mostly static world with only some environmental audio, but mostly no music.
* You want to be able to do everything in the game without help (note: help is not necessary for the achievements, though some may need it).
* You want to be able to do everything in the game in a reasonable amount of time (note: again, not a problem for the achievements)
(including this in spoiler tags so others do not inevitably point it out in comments)
* You can't stand
being "lectured" on
religion/science/philosophy/art/whatever. This isn't a required part of the game. If you don't like that sort of thing, you can ignore it, but if you do, you will be
partially "missing the point"There is a common complaint that, despite what I said, and despite the overall positive reception, that the core mechanic of the game (drawing a line) is too repetitive. I worried about this initially, but I after having played the game, I think it's fine and surprisingly well done, though perhaps not without some arguable flaws. I guess I have to mention that here because it's such a common complaint, but ultimately if this sounds like a concern to you, the only way to find out if it works for you or not without spoiling the game is to actually play the game for yourself.
Besides these warnings, I highly recommend it to anyone else.
Misc. Notes
The game is actually "optionally" DRM free. The Steam version can be run without Steam, if necessary (although mixing offline/online may cause problems).
Buying it at the Humble Store will give you a choice between DRM-free
only or Steam key
only..
The game looks nice on High settings, for which you would need to meet the moderately high recommended requirements. I haven't tried it in lower settings, but I've seen some people say that the game loses a lot when settings go lower, so the experience won't be as nice.
Is this game "indie"? I would say so. Here's a relevant quote from Jonathan Blow (from Reddit AMA):
"I am not disappointed with anything from the game. If we had shipped it early, I would have been -- I would have stories like you hear from most game developers, "well, we originally wanted to do X but we had to de-scope the game because it was obviously too ambitious", or, "we tried to do Y but we just didn't get it right and then we had to ship". No, that is not how we work here. We built an ambitious game and we made sure everything was good and then we shipped it. When you aren't being forced to ship by a publisher or by financial constraints, you can feel free to make the best thing that you can."
A Spoilerful Review by Someone Else
If you've
already finished the game, or are for some silly reason resolved to never play it, then this is another review I'd recommend that discusses the nature of the game in a way that can't be done without spoilers:
http://www.gamesradar.com/eureka-moment-what-witness-story-really-about/Sensory Info
There are sections of the game where puzzles are sound and color based. If you have a sensory deficiency, you will not be able to finish those puzzles on your own. But, you could look up the solutions in a guide.
Specifically, the sound puzzles are:
in the forest area where there are speakers attached to trees, etc, near the puzzles and for one puzzle in the shipwreckThe color puzzles are
in the greenhouse area on the sea facing side of the mountain and a few also in the village area